I bought the new board of RRD 70. A week boxing began to drink the water. I wrote Roberto Ricci, who could not believe the poor quality of his board. The owner of the store swapped me a new one. A week later, became the board again to draw water. I became totally not write, and gave the shaper, who has strengthened my boxes, except one of the boxes was curved.Another story about the new Royal board 70, which I bought for my friend, after the second time on water, it began to drink the water. A letter written to the firm Royal remained unanswered. We gave it shaper, who redid it's deck. He said that it is very poor quality. A few days later on it swollen bottom, after only 30 minutes on the sun.Why IKA accepts boards quality is not guaranteed?

These companies that have chosen to have their gear made in china or some other cheap labour country should have their own quality controls in place or they will suffer from poor workmanship and unhappy customers who paid lots of money for something that was not built to an acceptable standard.

They cant expect some guy who earns $70 a week and can only dream of riding a kiteboard to understand the forces these boards are put through. He also probably doesn't understand these boards he makes sell for well over $1500 and the customer expect them to be the best Quality!

As customers are demanding lighter products the materials used and light weight design leave no room for error and poor manufacturing workmanship

Sorry about your board problems. Are the leaks due to cracked fin box or separation of the box from bottom skin? On Royal board that de-laminated on the bottom, does it have a vent screw for the pressure relief?It is not up to IKA to do the quality check. That is domain of the manufacturer. They better get their act together with QA or face lots of returns and very unhappy customers. It could take a small change in manufacturing process to create a product that is not able to withstand load forces in racing I do not know how much experience Royal has with building these types of boards and the issues that come with QA when they are made by a third party. However RRD has plenty of experience building windsurfing boards (I believe in Asia, perhaps Cobra factory) so I'm somewhat surprised to hear about it. Than again I've seen expensive Starboard formula boards fall apart in few weeks under moderate use.Perhaps the best built light and strong racing boards come from Mike Zajicek of Mike's Lab. I owned his windsurfing formula board (2006), which suffered a lot of abuse, yet it is still happily riding with no leaks. Since he builds them himself, QA is not really an issue. Problem is that he tends to have a pretty long waiting list

In this and the problem is only Aguera and MaksLab can make good boards, but their delivery to Russia worth more than the board. I can order such a great board for the shaper, for less money than the RRD, but better quality, but it can not be used in competitions .. if the IKA imposed restrictions, then let them be responsible for production, which give permission!

Perhaps the best built light and strong racing boards come from Mike Zajicek of Mike's Lab. I owned his windsurfing formula board (2006), which suffered a lot of abuse, yet it is still happily riding with no leaks. Since he builds them himself, QA is not really an issue. Problem is that he tends to have a pretty long waiting list

Yeah his list is LONG. On Sunday one of the kiters asked how often do must of his customers order their next board. He said use usually when the pick up their new one.

Quality control is done in the Factories and not even the Windsurfing industry has it completely under control.

Not even a big brand like North can get around it and they have a huge windsurfing company behind them with all the knowhow.

Although sometimes it is not the quality of the production that is the problem, it is the construction the Brands have chosen. Lets talk boxes. Almost all the Brands I have seen use pretty bad techniques for their fin boxes. They may be light, but they are not reinforced properly.

When I built my own raceboards, I used prefabricated boxes from Germany which where reinforced with a super hard waterproof shell of closed cell foam. Costs more, but will never leak and can take a hit.

The super light boxes that a lot of the production brands use are not reinforced and can only be reinforced up to a certain point when put in the board. It's no wonder that the boards are taking on water. My Aguera did the same last year. It was even so bad that my boxes shrunk on that board after I dried it out after the KTE Italy. I had to heat the boxes and force the fins in to get the right shape again. I hope Alex used a different technique this year.

Another thing I do notice however is that a lot of racers have no idea how to treat their boards. The main thing being the pressure valve.

If your board has spent the night in your garage in the cold and then you leave your board in your car standing at the beach and it heats up the Foam inside will expand. Then you dump it back into cold water and the foam shrinks. Of course the foam rips off from the laminate and you have a huge bubble or soft spot under the board. This is not the fault of the factory or the brand. It's yours.

When you store your board take out the screw. Only put it in when you are sure there is no huge temperature difference between the inside of the board and the surrounding water. It's best to try to keep the board in the shade or Boadbag and out of direct sun in conditions like that.

I'm sorry. Rant over.

In conclusion:

1) Most Kitebrands still need to learn what works and not with High Volume Sandwich construction

2) Most Kiter need to learn how handle and maintain their Raceboards

3) Racers need to accept that the boards are really fragile and always will be. just check out the windsurfing boards.

I think you can get your money back. Im waiting my new RRD since last year. Look what reply I've got few weeks ago from RRD :

"...The delay is not depending by us. We discovered a manufacture problem on the boards.So we had to recall all the boards and stop deliveries to avoid future problem.Other brands that are made in the same factory have exactly the same problem but they do not really care about this. Their boards will be full of water after few hours in the water. We preferred to delay the release and deliver a perfect product..."

Its mean they sold you defected board knowing already about this problem.

the ONLY RRD 70s that were available as early as stated by moscow bloke were either for Team riders, Who didnt pay or had the board on a deal and were in such small numbers that getting another off the shelf to replace a leaking one is unlikely, when I ordered mine i was told fully of the delay and the reasons why, no customer boards had been shipped anywhere at that time from what i had been told.

the leaking was discovered by RRD team riders and testers NOT by paying customers.

something seems a bit strange in the story really.

Last edited by james on Thu Apr 19, 2012 5:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Quality control is done in the Factories and not even the Windsurfing industry has it completely under control.

Not even a big brand like North can get around it and they have a huge windsurfing company behind them with all the knowhow.

Although sometimes it is not the quality of the production that is the problem, it is the construction the Brands have chosen. Lets talk boxes. Almost all the Brands I have seen use pretty bad techniques for their fin boxes. They may be light, but they are not reinforced properly.

When I built my own raceboards, I used prefabricated boxes from Germany which where reinforced with a super hard waterproof shell of closed cell foam. Costs more, but will never leak and can take a hit.

The super light boxes that a lot of the production brands use are not reinforced and can only be reinforced up to a certain point when put in the board. It's no wonder that the boards are taking on water. My Aguera did the same last year. It was even so bad that my boxes shrunk on that board after I dried it out after the KTE Italy. I had to heat the boxes and force the fins in to get the right shape again. I hope Alex used a different technique this year.

Another thing I do notice however is that a lot of racers have no idea how to treat their boards. The main thing being the pressure valve.

If your board has spent the night in your garage in the cold and then you leave your board in your car standing at the beach and it heats up the Foam inside will expand. Then you dump it back into cold water and the foam shrinks. Of course the foam rips off from the laminate and you have a huge bubble or soft spot under the board. This is not the fault of the factory or the brand. It's yours.

When you store your board take out the screw. Only put it in when you are sure there is no huge temperature difference between the inside of the board and the surrounding water. It's best to try to keep the board in the shade or Boadbag and out of direct sun in conditions like that.

I'm sorry. Rant over.

In conclusion:

1) Most Kitebrands still need to learn what works and not with High Volume Sandwich construction

2) Most Kiter need to learn how handle and maintain their Raceboards

3) Racers need to accept that the boards are really fragile and always will be. just check out the windsurfing boards.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum